Read Ebook: The Captain of the Janizaries A story of the times of Scanderberg and the fall of Constantinople by Ludlow James M James Meeker

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Ebook has 1433 lines and 78555 words, and 29 pages

the folds of the sheep, until Amurath cried in sheer vexation among the generals, "Will none of you save us from the fury of that wild beast?" The incessant slaughter that broke the bewildered silence of the generals was the only response.

Thus passed some six years since the time when our story opens; years which, had they stood by themselves, and not been followed by fifteen years more of equal prowess, would have won for Scanderbeg the unstinted praise of that distinguished writer who enrolls him among the seven greatest uncrowned men of the world's history.

During these years Castriot had studied with closest scrutiny the character of his nephew, Amesa. His natural discernment, aided by his long observation of human duplicity while among the Turks--and, indeed by his own experience, as for many years he had masked his own discontent and ultimate purpose--gave him a power of estimating men which may be called a moral clairvoyance. He discovered that in his nephew which led him to credit the story of Kabilovitsch--as the forester Arnaud was still called, although some more than suspected his identity. The chief saw clearly that Amesa's loyalty would be limited by his selfish interests. Those interests now led him to most faithful and apparently patriotic devotion. Besides, the loss or alienation of so influential a young voivode, involving a schism in the house of the Castriots, might be fatal to the Albanian cause. The general, therefore, fed the ambition of his relative, giving him honorable command, for which he was well fitted by reason of both courage and genius. Nor did Amesa disappoint this confidence. His sword was among the sharpest and his deeds most daring. The peasant soldiers often said that Amesa was not unworthy the blood of the Castriots. To Sultan Amurath's proposal of peace on condition of Scanderbeg's simple recognition of the Ottoman's nominal suzerainty, allowing him to retain the full actual possession of all his ancestral holdings, Amesa's voice joined with that of Moses Goleme and the other allied nobles in commending the refusal of their chief.

Amesa's courage and zeal seemed at times to pass the control of his judgment. Thus, in a sharp battle with the Turks, during the temporary absence of Castriot, who was resisting an encroachment of the Venetians on the neighboring country of Montenegro, the fiery young voivode was seized with such blind ferocity that he knew not where he was. He had engaged a group of his own countrymen, apparently not discerning his mistake until he had unhorsed one of them, whom he was on the point of sabering, when his arm was caught by a comrade. The endangered man was Kabilovitsch, who saw that there was a method in Amesa's madness which it behoved him to note.

It was evident to Kabilovitsch not only that he was recognized by Amesa, but also that the young voivode was more than suspicious of the former forester's knowledge of the affair by which the magnificent estate of De Streeses had passed into his hands. The good man's solicitude was intense through fear that Amesa had become aware of the escape of the child heir, and might discover some clue to her whereabouts. Several times Milosch had visited the camp inquiring for Kabilovitsch; and Constantine had made frequent journeys carrying tidings of Morsinia's welfare. Had neither of these been spied upon? Did no one ever pass the little hamlet where she was in covert who recognized in the now daily developing womanly features the likeness of her mother, Mara De Streeses?

A little after this assault of Amesa upon Kabilovitsch, came news which startled the latter. To understand this the reader must penetrate a wild mountainous district a double score of miles from the camp of Castriot.

FOOTNOTE:

Sir William Temple.

Out of a broad valley, through which lies the chief highway leading to the north-west of Albania, there opens a narrow ravine which seems to end abruptly against the precipitous front of a mountain range. But, turning into this ravine, one is surprised to find that it winds sharply, following a swift stream, and climbing for many miles through the mountain, until it suddenly debouches into a picturesque valley, which affords grazing space for sheep and enough arable land to sustain the peasants who once dwelt there.

It was the latter part of April; the day before that upon which from time immemorial the peasants among these mountains had observed the festival of Saint George, which they devoted to ceremonies commemorative of the awakening summer life of the world.

It was still early in the afternoon, though the high mountain wall on the west had shut out the sun, whose bright rays, however, still burning far overhead, dropped their benediction of roseate shadows into the valley they were not permitted to enter; loading the atmosphere with as many tints as there were in Buddha's bowl when the poor man threw in the bud of genuine charity, and it burst into a thousand flowers.

A group of maidens gathered at the little mill, each holding an earthen bowl to catch the glistening spray drops which danced from the edge of the clumsy water-wheel. When these were filled they cast into the "witching waters" the early spring flowers, anemones and violets and white coral arbutus, which they had picked during the day. It was a pleasing superstition that the water, having been beaten into spray, received life from the flowers which the renewed vitality of the awakening spring spirit had pressed up through the earth; and that, if one should bathe in this on St. George's day, health and happiness would attend him during the year.

"What is it?" cried one as a crackling in the bushes far above their heads on a steep crag was followed in a moment by the beat of a pebble, as it glanced from ledge to ledge almost to their feet.

"The sheep are not up there!" said another.

"Perhaps the Vili!" suggested a third, "for I am sure that I have seen one this very day."

"What was he like?" exclaimed several at once, while all kept their eyes upon the cliff above.

"There! there! Did you see it?" Several avowed that they saw it stealing along the very brow of the hill; but all agreed that it passed so swiftly that they could not tell just what they saw.

"It was just so with the one I saw to-day," said the former speaker. "I was on the ledge by the old eagle's nest, gathering my flowers. A tall being passed below me on the path, dressed so beautifully that I know it was none of us, and had dealings with none of us. It seemed anxious not to be seen; for my little cry of surprise caused it to vanish as if it melted into the foam of the stream as it plunges into the pool."

"That was just like the Vili," interposed one. "They live under the river's bank. They talk in the murmur of the streams. Old Mirko, who used to work much in the mill, learned to understand what they said. Did this one you saw have long hair? The Vili, Mirko said, always did."

"I cannot say," replied the girl, "for its head was hidden in a blossoming laurel bush between it and me."

"It was one," cried another, "for there are no blossoming laurels yet. It was its long white hair waving in the wind, that you saw."

"Let us go down to the pool!" proposed one, "maybe we can see it again."

"No! No!" cried the others, in a chorus of tremulous voices.

"No, indeed," said one of the larger girls, "for it might be they are eating, or they are dancing the Kolo--which they always do as the sun goes down, and if any body sees them then they get angry, and will come to your house and look at you with the evil eye."

Hasting home with their bowls of water crowned with flowers, they told their story to the stargeshina.

The old man laughed at their credulity:--

"Girls always see strange things on the eve of Saint George."

At the evening meal in the great room of the first house, the patriarch, taking his cue from the story the girls belonging to that household had told of their imagined vision, repeated legend after legend about those strange beings that people the unknown caverns in the mountains, and rise from the brooks, leaving the water-spiders to mark the spot where they emerged so that they may find their way back again, and of the wjeshtiges, who throw off their bodies as easily as others lay aside their clothes, flit through the fire, ride upon the sparks as horses, float on the threads of white smoke--all the time watching the persons gathered about the blazing logs, that they may mark the one who is first to die. "This doomed person," the old man said, "they visit when he has gone to sleep, and, with a magic rod, open his breast; utter in mystic words the day of his death; take out his heart and feast upon it. Then they carefully close up the side, and, though the victim lives on, having no heart, no spring of life in him, sickens and droops until the fatal day; as the streams vanish when cut off from the fountains whence they start."

These stories were followed by songs, the music of which was within a narrow range of notes, and sung to the accompaniment of the gusle--a rude sort of guitar with a single string. The subjects of these songs and the ideas they contained were as limited in their range as the notes by which they were rendered; such as the impossible exploits of heroes, and improbable romances of love. The merit of the singing generally consisted in the additions or variations with which the genius of the performer enabled him to adorn the hackneyed music or original narrative.

"Let Constantine take the gusle, and sing us the song about the peasant maid who conquered the heart of the king," said the stargeshina.

"Constantine is not here," replied a clear and sweet, but commanding sort of voice. "He went out as it began to darken, and has not returned."

The speaker rose as she said it, and went toward the large door of the room to look out. She was a young woman of slender, but superb form, which the costume of the country did not altogether conceal. She was tall and straight, but moved with the graceful freedom of a child, for her straightness was not that of an arrow--rather of the unstrung bow, whose beauty is revealed by its flexibility. Her limbs were rounded perfectly to the feminine model, but were evidently possessed of muscular strength developed by daily exercise incident to her mountain life. A glance at her would disprove that western theory which associates the ideal of female beauty only with softness of fleshly texture and lack of sinew. Her face was commanding, brow high, eyes rather deep-set and blue, mouth small--perhaps too straight for the best expression of amiability--chin full, and suggestive of firmness and courage. As she gazed through the doorway into the night a troubled look knit her features--just enough, however, to make one notice rather the strong, steady and heroic purpose which conquered it. When she turned again to the company the firelight revealed only a girlish sweetness and gentleness of face and manner. She took the gusle and sang a pretty song about the dancing of the witches; her merry voice starting a score of other voices in the simple chorus. Then followed a war song, in which the daughter of a murdered chieftain calls upon the clan to avenge her father, and save their land from an insulting foe. It was largely recitative, and rendered with so much of the realistic in her tones and manner as to draw even the old men to their feet, while, with waving hands and marching stamp, they started the company in the refrain.

Milosch set the example of retiring when the evening was well advanced. Though Constantine was still absent, it gave his father no anxiety, for the boy was accustomed to have his own private business with coons in the forest, and the eels in the pool, and, indeed, with the stars too--for often he would lie for hours looking at them, only Morsinia being allowed to interrupt his conference with the bright-eyed watchers above.

FOOTNOTE:

Still a Servian and Albanian superstition.

Constantine, who was now a manly fellow of nearly eighteen years, had left the house when it grew dark. The night was thick, for heavy clouds had spread their pall over the sky. A little space from the house was the kennel. A deep growl greeted his approach to it.

"Still, Balk!" muttered he, as he loosed an enormous mastiff, and led the brute toward the side of the house on which the clijet, or chamber, occupied by Morsinia was located.

"Down, Balk!" he said, as again and again the huge beast rose and placed his paws upon his master's shoulders. Balk was tied within a clump of elder-bushes a little way from the house, and at the opening of a foot-path ascending the mountain. The young man lay down with his head upon the mastiff. Nearly an hour passed; the silence unbroken except by a querulous whine of the dog as his comrade refused to indulge his playful spirit. Suddenly Balk threw up his head and sniffed the air nervously. Yet no sound was heard, but the soughing of the winds through the budding trees, and the murmur of the brook. The animal became restless and would not lie down except at the sternly whispered command.

Leaving him, Constantine opened the shutter of the clijet occupied by his father and himself, and quietly entered. Though in the dark, he strung a strong bow, balanced several arrows in his hand to determine the best, saying to himself as he did so, "I can send these straight in the direction of a sound, thanks to my night hunting!" A dagger was thrust into the top of his leather hose. He wound his head in the strooka--the cloth which answers for both cap and pillow to those who are journeying among those mountains and liable to exposure without bed or roof at night.

The noise though slight awakened Milosch, who had fallen into a light sleep.

"Where now, my boy? No coon will come to you such a night as this."

"Father, I did not tell you, because you laugh at my fears," said Constantine in a low tone. "But the anxiety of Uncle Kabilovitsch and the great captain, too, when I went to camp last week, makes me more cautious about Morsinia. The Vili are about, as the girls said."

"Nonsense, you child! It's a shame that a boy of your years should believe such stuff. Besides what have the Vili to do with our daughter?"

"Look here, father; when I was searching for a rabbit's burrow this afternoon I saw the footprint of one of them, and it wore a soldier's shoe too. That is the sort of Vili I believe in."

"Why, boy!" said Milosch, "your head is so full of soldiering that rabbits' burrows look like soldiers' feet. Or your head is so turned with love for our girl, that you must imitate the Latin knights, and go watch beneath the shutter of your lady's castle. Go, along, then, and let the night dews take the folly out of you. Foolish boy!" added he, as he turned toward the wall.

Constantine went back to the dog. The huge beast had thrust himself as far as the cord would allow him in the direction away from the house, and stood trembling with excitement as he peered into the black shadows which lay against the mountain. Constantine could detect no unusual sound save the creaking of the gigantic limbs of the trees as they rubbed against each other in the rising wind, the sharpening whistle of the breeze, and the crackle of the dead brushwood. Yet the mastiff's excitement increased. He strained the rope with his utmost strength, but the hand of his master upon his neck checked the whining growl.

A branch snapped on the hillside in the direction of the path.

"No wind did that," muttered he. A stone rolled down the declivity.

"No foot familiar with that path did that. You are right, Balk!" and by main strength he pressed the mastiff's head to the ground, and, with his arm about his neck, kept him crouching and silent.

Stealthy steps were heard.

"One! Two!" counted the boy. "You and I are enough for them, eh, Balk?"

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